At the hunting grounds North Sea, April 12, 19— Course: northwest. Wind: southwest, strength 3-4. Sea: strength 3. View: good. Both machines in high speed.

We were very comfortable in the conning tower because the weather was fine and the sun burned with its heat our field-gray skin jackets.

“Soon we will have summer,” I said to the officer on guard, Lieutenant Petersen, who was sitting with me on the conning tower’s platform. I felt entirely too hot in my thick underwear.

Petersen, who, like me, was sitting with his legs dangling in the open hatch on whose edge we had placed ourselves, put his hand on the deck and loosened the thick, camel’s wool scarf, twice wrapped around his neck, as if suddenly he realized it was too hot for him, too.

“I think I’ll soon discharge this one from service,” said Petersen, and pulled at the faithful winter friend as if he wished to strip it off.

“Don’t be too hasty, my dear lieutenant,” I replied laughing. “Just wait until to-night, and then I am sure that you will repent and take your faithful friend back into the service.”

“Are we going to keep above the water to-night, Herr Captain-Lieutenant, or are we to submerge?” he asked me.

“It depends on what comes up,” I answered. “It rests as usual with the weather.”

Thus we were talking and smoking on the conning tower while our eyes scanned the horizon and kept a sharp lookout all around us.

On the little platform, which in a sharp angle triangle unites itself from behind with the tower, the subordinate officer corporal was on guard, and with a skin cloth was cleaning the lenses on his double spy-glass, which were wet.

“Did you also get a dousing, Krappohl?” I asked. “Then you didn’t look out, either. That rascal soaked my cigarette just as he did the lenses on your spy-glass. That’s the dickens of a trick.”

With the word “rascal” I meant the splashing wave, which, while the sea was in a perfect calm, without any reason climbed up to us on the tower. If there had been a storm it would have been nothing to mention. Then we often did not have a dry thread on our bodies. But such a shameless scoundrel, which in the midst of the most beautiful weather suddenly throws himself over a person, is something to make one angry.

We made good speed. The water, which was thrown aside by the bow, passed by us in two wide white formed streaks. The motor rattled and rumbled, and the ventilation machine in the so-called “Centrale” right under our feet made a monotonous buzzing. Through the only opening where the air could pass out, the open tower hatch, all kinds of odors flowed one after another from the lower regions right by our noses. First we smelled smear-oil. Then the fragrance of oranges (we had with us a large shipment, which we had received as a gift of love), and now—ah! Now it was coffee, a strong aromatic coffee odor.

Lieutenant Petersen moved back and forth unrestingly on the “swimwest,” with which he had tried to make it a little more comfortable for himself on the hard sitting place, bent deeper and deeper down into the hatch inhaling with greed the odor from below, and said, as he in pleasant anticipation began to rub his hands together:

“Now we’ll have coffee, Herr Captain-Lieutenant!”

I had just with a great deal of trouble pulled out a cigarette-case from the inside pocket of my skin jacket and was groping in my other pockets for matches, when a hand (the gloves number 9½) with outstretched forefinger reached towards me from behind and the subordinate officer’s excited voice announced:

“A cloud of smoke four points port.”

As quickly as lightning the spy-glass was placed to the eye. “Where? Oh, yes, there. I can see it!”

“As yet, only smoke can be seen. Isn’t it so?”

In what a suspense we were now. Leaning forward, and with the glasses pressed to the eye, we gazed on the little, distant, cloud of smoke. It curled, then bent with the wind and slowly dissolved in a long, thin veil-like streak. Nothing but smoke could be seen, a sign that the air was clear, and one could see all the way to the extreme horizon.

What kind of a ship could it be, which the curved form of the earth still concealed from our view? Was it a harmless freighter, a proud passenger steamer, an auxiliary cruiser, or maybe an armored cruiser jammed with cannon?

It was with a feeling, wavering between hope and fear, that these thoughts occupied my mind—fear, not for the enemy, because we were anxious to meet him—but fear that a disappointment would fall on us, if the ship proved to be a neutral steamer when it came closer. Seven times we had during three days experienced such disappointment, seven times we had met neutral ships without contraband on board, and had been compelled to let them continue on their way.

The distance between us and the steamer had not diminished, so that its masts and a funnel arose above the horizon, two narrow, somewhat slanting lines, between which there was a thicker dark spot. A common freighter, therefore. This we saw at the first glance. I changed our course northwardly in order to head off the course of the steamer which was going in an easterly direction. With the highest speed the machine could make we raced to meet them and the bridge and part of the hull could already be seen.

“To the diving stations! Artillery alarm. Cannon service on deck! First torpedo tube ready for fire!”

With loud voice I called down these commands into the boat.

There was a stir in the passages below like when a stone is thrown into the midst of a swarm of bees. From below it arose, and the men who were to serve at the cannons crowded on the narrow precipitous ladder, swung themselves through the tower hatch and leaped on the deck. Now, first, just once, a deep breath, so that the lungs can draw the refreshing sea air, and then with their sleeves turned up and flashing eyes to the guns.

“Can you see any neutral signs, Petersen?”

“No, Herr Captain-Lieutenant. The entire hull is black. It’s an Englishman.”

“The flag of war to the mast! The usual signals ready!” I called down into the tower.

Immediately our flag of war floated from the top of the mast behind the tower. It told the men over there: “Here am I, a German submarine U-boat. Now for it, you proud Britisher! Now it will be seen who rules the sea.”

We had gradually drawn closer to a distance of about six thousand meters. At last an enemy! After so many neutral steamers. At last an enemy! An intense joy thrilled us, a joy which only can be compared with the hunter’s when he sees at last the longed-for prey coming within range, after long and fruitless efforts. We had traveled many hundred sea miles. We had endured storm, cold, and at times had been drenched to the skin, and there, only two points port, our first success was waving towards us!

By this time we must have been discovered by the steamer. Now our flag of war must have been recognized. A ghastly horror must have seized the captain on the bridge: The U-boat terror! the U-boat pest!

But the captain on the steamer did not give in so easily. He tried to save himself by flight. Suddenly we saw how the steamer belched forth thicker and darker clouds of smoke and in a sharp curve turned port. Its propeller water, which hitherto could hardly be seen, was whipped to a white foam, and let us know the machines had been put into the highest possible speed. But it was of no use. No matter how much the captain was shouting and how much the machinist drove his sweating and naked fire crew to even more than human endeavors, so that the coal flew about and the boilers were red, everything was useless. We closed in on him with a horrible certainty nearer and nearer.

For some time I had been standing high up on the tower with a spy-glass before my eyes and did not lose one of the steamer’s motions. Now it seemed to me the right moment had come to energetically command the steamer to stop.

“A shot above the steamer! Fire!”

The granate landed two hundred meters in front of the steamer. We waited a few minutes, but when the shot did not cause any change I gave the right distance to the gunners and shouted the command to aim at the steamer. The second shot hit and a thick, black and yellow cloud from the explosion shot into the air. The third shot tore a piece off the funnel, the fourth hit the bridge, and before the fifth had left the mouth of the gun the signal flew up, “I have stopped.”

Ah! old friend, you had come to it, anyhow!

An old sea-rule says: “Carefulness is the best seamanship.” Regarding all the tricks and subterfuges which the hostile merchant-marine has used against us, I did not consider it advisable to advance nearer the steamer at once. I therefore also stopped our machines and signaled: “Leave the ship immediately!”

The signal was unnecessary. The English captain had himself given the command to the crew to take to the boats after he, frothing with anger, had comprehended the impossibility to flee. Snorting with wrath, he shortly afterwards came alongside our boat, and handed me at my request the ship’s papers and asked me to tow the three boats to the neighborhood of the coast. I promised this and said some simple words to him in regard to his bad luck and concerning the grim necessity of the war—which he dismissed with an angry shrug of his shoulders. I certainly could understand the man’s bad spirit.

I then went forward and torpedoed the steamer, which sank, stern foremost, with a gurgling sound into the deep.

At the same time four thousand tons of rice were lost to the English market.

We had met with success and this put us into the highest spirits. Come whatever wants to come, our voyage had not been entirely useless.

When I stepped down into the boat for a moment and passed through the narrow crew-room to my own little cabin, I saw to right and left joyful faces, and all eyes were smiling towards me as if they wished to say: “Congratulations!” The steamer’s sinking was the subject of discussion. Those who had witnessed the incident had to describe all the circumstances in smallest detail; where the torpedo had struck, how high the water-pillar had risen, and what afterwards happened to the steamer, how the people on the boat looked, and the like. Everything had to be explained.

When I went back some one said: “To-morrow it will be in the papers.” These words whirled around in my head for some time. Yes, to-morrow there would be in all the German newspapers under the column: “Ships sunk” or “Sacrifices to the U-boat war,” that once more we had retaliated on our most hated enemy, that his inhuman attempt to starve our people had been parried by a horrid and strong blow. And over there upon his isle our relentless enemy would receive the same kind of a newspaper notice. The only difference was that there it would cause fury instead of joy, and the dried-up old English editor would stare terrified on the telegram which he would hold in his hand, pull off his few white threads of hair, and swear as only an Englishman can swear.

Even up to the dusk of the night, we towed the sunken freighter’s three boats towards the coast. We then cut loose in order to get ready to manoeuver. When darkness set in, one had to be ready for surprises. Besides, we were not very far from land and the weather was fair, so that the boats could be in no danger. As a refreshment, I had three bottles of wine brought over to the captain of the ill-fated ship, and left him with best greetings to Mr. Churchill and his colleagues.

The last streak of day became paler and paler in the west. The spook-like red cloud-riders stretched themselves more and more, became indistinct, pulled themselves asunder, and at once were swept away. In their place appeared the dark demon of the night, spread itself over heaven, hid all the stars, and settled heavily over the sea.

This was just a night suitable for us. One could not see one’s hand before the eye. The steel covers on the tower windows were tightly shut, so that the least ray of light could not escape. Entirely invisible we were gliding forward in the dark. Dumb and immovable, each one was sitting at his post—the lieutenant, the subordinate officer, and the commander—trying with our eyes to pierce through the darkness and turning our heads continually from right to left and back again. The aim of our voyage was still far off and the fine weather had to be used.

Weakly, as if from a far distance, the phonograph’s song reached us lonely watchmen: